Workshop on. Welfare Economics and the Welfare State in Historical Perspective

Transcription

1 Workshop on Welfare Economics and the Welfare State in Historical Perspective 20 and 21 March, 2015 Institute of Economic Research Hitotsubashi University Reconstructing Aspects of Pigou s Utilitarian Ethics By Karen Knight University of Western Australia Abstract: Although the economic thought of Marshall and Pigou was united by ethical positions broadly considered utilitarian, differences in their intellectual milieu led to degrees of difference between their respective philosophical visions. This change in milieu includes the influence of the little understood period of transition from the early idealist period in Great Britain, which provided the context to Marshall s intellectual formation, and the late British Idealist period, which provided the context to Pigou s intellectual formation. During this latter period, the pervading Hegelianism and influences of naturalism arising from the ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer were challenged by Hermann Lotze, a key transitional thinker influencing the Neo-Kantian movement, who recognised significant limits of naturalism, on the one hand, and the metaphysical tenor of absolute idealism, on the other, and attempted to provide a balance between the two. The goal of this paper is to make the provisional case for the argument that Pigou s views on ethics were not only directly influenced by utilitarian thinkers like Mill and Sidgwick, but they were also indirectly influenced by Hermann Lotze, via the influence of the Neo- Kantian movement on late British idealism. To that end, Pigou s essays in The Trouble with Theism (1908), including his sympathetic consideration of the ethics of Friedrich Nietzsche, reflect the influence of Lotze indirectly through the impact at Cambridge of: James Ward s critique of associationist psychology, and consideration of the limits of naturalism including the critique of evolutionary ethics; Bertrand Russell s rejection of neo-hegelianism and, together with Alfred North Whitehead, the development of Logicism; and G.E. Moore s critique of utilitarian ethics on the basis of the naturalistic fallacy and the development of his own intuitionist system of ethics. 1 P a g e

2 1. Introduction The economic thought of the Cambridge economists, Alfred Marshall and A.C. Pigou, have largely been viewed as united by ethical positions broadly considered utilitarian, with various studies providing perspectives of the development of Marshall s ethical thought as associated with the new evolutionism of his times (Black, 1990; A. W. Coats, 1992, pp ; B. W. Coats & Raffaelli, 2006; Whitaker, 1977). The importance of the Cambridge philosopher, Henry Sidgwick, in the development of both Marshall s and Pigou s utilitarian ethics has also been underlined (Backhouse, 2006; Backhouse & Nishizawa, 2010; Medema, 2009; O'Donnell, 1979; Schultz, 2004). O Donnell (1979), for example, points out the implicit link between Sidgwick, Marshall and Pigou by arguing that Pigou modernised Sidgwick s philosophical thoughts; with Pigou s seminal work on welfare economics, Wealth and Welfare, being identified as the synthetic product of Sidgwickian ideas and Marshallian analytics. 1 Backhouse s and Nishizawa s (2010) edited compilation broadly considers the development of welfare economics towards the end of the 19 th century, considering the emergence of welfare analysis arising from Sidgwick s utilitarianism at Cambridge, on one hand, compared to that developed at Oxford influenced by T.H. Green s idealist thought, on the other. Their study complements recent works which have asserted the heterogeneous nature of idealist sentiment in Great Britain (Boucher & Vincent, 2012; Dunham, Grant, & Watson, 2011; Mander, 2011). The general impact of idealist philosophy has been noted as having influenced both Marshall and Pigou. Simon Cook, for example, considers the broad influence of neo-hegelian idealism upon Marshall and Satoshi Yamazaki (2008) identifies Pigou as an ideal utilitarian. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative impacts of idealism upon the ethical thought of Pigou and comment on how this may have shaped his utilitarian ethics and approach to welfare economics. A provisional case is made for the argument that Pigou s views on ethics were not only directly influenced by utilitarian thinkers like Mill and Sidgwick, but also indirectly influenced by changes in key intellectual influences arising during the late British idealist period. To that end, it is argued that Pigou s essays in The Trouble with Theism (1908) reflect the influence of the prominent German philosopher Hermann Lotze indirectly through his impact at Cambridge on the development of scholars thought such as: James Ward s critique of associationist psychology and the promotion of phenomenology, and together with W.R. Sorley, significant critique of naturalism and evolutionary ethics; Bertrand Russell s rejection of neo- Hegelianism and, together with Alfred North Whitehead, the development of Logicism; and G.E. 1 Pigou s connection to Sidgwick is also pointed to by Bart Schultz (2004) who noted J.S. Nicholson s (1913) survey including Pigou s Wealth and Welfare included the critical observation of Pigou s debt to Sidgwick s body of work as it pertained to political economy. 2 P a g e

3 Moore s critique of utilitarian ethics on the basis of the naturalistic fallacy and the development of his own intuitionist system of ethics. The paper concludes that these influences underlie transformations in Pigou s ethical thought and may account for differences between the welfare analysis developed by his teacher and mentor Alfred Marshall. This paper is organised in the following way. Section 2 broadly provides a wider context from which Marshall s and Pigou s shared utilitarian traditions arose. This includes a closer examination of the heterogeneous nature of British idealism, with particular consideration of the importance of Herman Lotze s influence in the closing decades of the 19 th century. Section 3 considers the emergence of modulated forms of idealism and important critiques against naturalism and absolute idealism arising from intellects in the Moral Sciences at Cambridge. In Section 4 aspects of Pigou s philosophical biography are reconstructed to demonstrate wider impacts upon his ethical thought than those traditionally acknowledged. The paper concludes in Section 5 by making a provisional case for the argument that Pigou s views on ethics were indirectly influenced by the pervading impact of Lotze on late British Idealism. 2. The Heterogeneous Nature of British Idealism Two major stands of ethical investigation emerged in Britain after Thomas Hobbes s (1651) consideration of moral order. These philosophical responses were diametrically opposed. From one end, scholars developed rational conceptions of moral rules or Devine Legislation from which to determine moral principles, broadly becoming referred to as an intuitionist approach. From the other end, scholars responding to David Hume began to employ empiricist approaches to ethical considerations by exploring various psychological aspects of human conduct and moral sentiment. This is the approach from which utilitarianism developed based on the Associationism 2 of Jeremy Bentham (1789) and John Stuart Mill The Good was that which produced maximum pleasure and minimum pain and underlay the postulate, the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. From 1871, the hedonistic calculus was developed in a more formal sense when incorporated into the mathematical theories of marginal utility by William Stanley Jevons, who determined that value was determined solely upon utility. 2 Associationism in this regard can be traced to the notions of Plato s and Aristotle s ideas of impacts of successive mental states and associative memories. Today associationism is considered a reductionist school of psychology. Wilson (2014), however, notes that although John Stuart Mill s thought emerges from the British empiricist tradition, he cannot be considered an epiphenomenalist and in fact Mill says little in regard to the mind-body problem, unlike Herbert Spencer who, importantly, deals with them in detail in his Principles of Psychology (1855). Wilson also notes the break of between John Stuart Mill s utilitarianism and the utilitarianism of Bentham and that of his father noting that in Mill s Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy (1865) he vigorously defends the notion of human beings as active in their own self-determination. 3 Psychological considerations of moral philosophy had been considered earlier by David Hartley and Adam Smith, though in different ways. 3 P a g e

4 Jevons, along with Marie-Esprit-Léon Walras and Carl Menger jointly consolidated an approach which is considered to have revolutionised economic theorising. Sidgwick attempted to reconcile the opposing philosophical positions of ethical intuitionism and utilitarianism. Refusing to abandon utility as an ethical guide to morality, Sidgwick (1874 p. 473) closely examined opposing methods of ethics which had arisen (hedonistic egoism, universalistic hedonism and intuitionism) and came to the pessimistic conclusion that [...] the Cosmos of Duty is thus really reduced to a Chaos: and the prolonged effort of the human intellect to frame a perfect ideal of rational conduct is seen to have been foredoomed to inevitable failure. In reaching this fundamental contradiction, an inherent dualism remained in Sidgwick s solution. In distinguishing intuitionism in meta-ethics (the theoretical meaning of moral propositions and how their truth-values may be determined) and intuitionism in normative ethics or deontology (the practical means of determining a moral course of action) 4, Sidgwick s utilitarianism led to the separation of personal desires from the general happiness of the greatest number. It is against this background that marginal utility and utilitarianism informed the economic thought of both Marshall and Pigou. But the utilitarian line of political economy and ethics, as qualified by Mill and then by Sidgwick, came to confront an alternative ethical school in the closing decades of the 19 th century. Sidgwick viewed the Oxford scholar T.H. Green as the main representative of idealism in Britain and as attempting to enunciate an ethical system alternate to his own (Schneewind, 1977, p ). Published in 1883, a year after his death, Green s Prolegomena to Ethics presented the end, or the good, as individuals realisation that their consciousness was but part of many, forming and reflecting the one Devine mind or greater absolute. Refuting reality posed as a purely material process, idealists did not view mind (or consciousness) to be a mere passive receptor of external stimuli, but rather an active element in the constitution of reality itself (Boucher & Vincent, 2012, p. 1). Emphasising the social aspect of the human condition, idealism sought to counter the individualism of utilitarianism, the naturalism of evolutionary theories and disesteeming of religious theistic beliefs, and in the context of the late 19 th century, provided a platform for wide ranging social reform in Britain in the wake of growing social dislocation and poverty caused by the processes of industrialisation. In contrast to utilitarianism, Idealists influenced by Green drew on Kantian notions of moral duty to act in a certain way based on a standard of rationality (Kant s Categorical 4 Shionoya provides this succinct distinction (1991, p.7) 4 P a g e

5 Imperative) 5 and the Hegelian emphasis on self-realization (or the development of spiritual evolution) as a moral duty. Although interpretation of Hegelianism at Oxford was by no means uniform, monism 6 and absolute idealism featured in the work of T.H. Green, Edward Caird, and particularly that of F.H. Bradley, and also of Green s students: Bernard Bosanquet 7, R.L. Nettleship, and J.H. Muirhead. Philosophically, however, absolute idealism led to an aporia; the subordination of parts to the whole and hence, an annulment of individuality. This sat in stark contrast to the individualism inherent in utilitarianism. Although the utilitarian tradition at Cambridge was sustained via the influence of Sidgwick, idealist thought and sentiment gained a foothold at Cambridge via James Ward, William Sorley, and later J.M.E. McTaggart, though not in the absolute form which had arisen at Oxford. It is the heterogeneous adherence to the idealism of Kant and Hegel, and the impact of other key intellects whose impact has been relatively overlooked, which led to forms of personal idealism to emerge alongside absolute idealism in Great Britain; a point generally overlooked when considering the impact of idealism upon Cambridge economists. British idealism is generally considered to have commenced with the appearance of James Stirling s book The Secret of Hegel published in 1865, although early forerunners such as James Ferrier, John Grote, Benjamin Jowett and James Martineau had introduced the Germanic philosophies of Kant and Hegel to Britain earlier. 8 Developing in a distinctive way, British idealism was characterised by intellects not only adhering in different degrees to aspects of the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, but also influenced by the German neo-kantian movement whose roots can be traced back to the period shortly before and after Kant s death in In Germany, three highly influential transitional philosophers and scientists Rudolf Hermann Lotze, Hermann Helmholtz and Adolf Trendelenburg modulated absolute Hegelianism, and influenced the Neo-Kantian movement in the German speaking world. Their thought had come of age during the mid-1800s during three profound philosophical developments: the rise of materialism, the materialist debates (or controversy), and the identity crisis of philosophy. In Beiser s (2013, p.2) recent assessment, Trendelenburg and Lotze were 5 Set out in Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals Kant s Categorical Imperative takes the form of a series of formulations centred on an individual s ability to reason through given certain objective ethical rules and that individuals have a duty to act in ways to uphold these ethical rules. 6 Monism is the philosophical view that existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance; and as compared to pluralism. 7 Bosanquet, however, would later develop idealism along naturalist lines as propounded in his Gifford lectures in 1912, The Principle of Individuality and Value. 8 See Mander (2011, pp ) for a detailed description of the early importation of the German philosophies of Kant and Hegel to Britain. 9 Beiser (2014, Part I, 1.) considers the Neo-Kantian movement as becoming fully visible and established during the 1860s but that the movements roots can be traced to the end of the 18 th Century and early 19 th Century in the works of Jakob Friedrich Fries ( ), Johan Friedrich Herbart ( ) and Friedric Eduard Beneke ( ). 5 P a g e

6 [...] sources of resistance against [ ] historicism, naturalism, positivism, and materialism [providing those] that could not accept psychologism in logic, mechanism in biology, materialism in psychology, or relativism in history. Together, they provided alternate routes of philosophical and scientific thought which inspired the likes of Hermann Cohen, Edmund Husserl, and Heinrich Rickert to develop their views with an acknowledgment of the realm of value and validity. Trendelenburg recognised the advance of the empirical sciences and sought to preserve philosophy by reorientating its purpose to explain the phenomenon of the modern science; this program advanced by neo-kantians later became referred to as epistemology (Beiser, 2013, p. 14). Helmholtz, distanced himself from Kant s metaphysics on the basis it was the product of outdated science (specifically the implications of non-euclidean geometry), though not the empirical or scientific side of Kant s work. His program was an attempt to build philosophy on the basis of science (Beiser, 2014, p ). The influence of Helmholtz s work in energy physics on Jevon s development of marginal theory in economics has been contentiously debated (Grattan-Guinness, 2010; Mirowski, 1989; Whitaker, 1996); as has his physiological work upon Marshall s early interests in psychology and Kantian philosophy (Simon Cook, 2006; Groenewegen, 1995, p ; Raffaelli, Becattini, & Dardi, 2006, pp. 128, 192, 568). It is Lotze s pervading influence at Cambridge, however, which is of interest in the development of Pigou s philosophical orientation, as Lotze s influence, alongside that of Sidgwick, can be traced to significant philosophical critiques which emerged in the Moral Sciences at Cambridge approaching the turn of the 20 th century. Lotze first became prominent in Germanspeaking Europe as part of the anti-hegelian German objectivist movement (Milkov, 2013). Graduating from Leipzig University in 1838 with doctorates in medicine and philosophy, a feature of Lotze s philosophical approach was a commitment to scientific method. His major philosophical works included: his early system of philosophy in what is sometimes referred to as the lesser Metaphysics (1841) and lesser Logic (1843); his philosophical system written for a popular audience, Microcosm (published in three volumes between 1856 and 1864); and his revised works in philosophy which consisted of his substantially extended and revised work on logic and metaphysics in what is sometimes referred to as the greater Logic (1874) and greater Metaphysics (1879). Lotze died in 1881 before his planned final volume that was to include a treatment of ethics, aesthetics and religious philosophy, was completed George T. Ladd (1986a, 1886b, 1887), however, published dictated portions of Lotze s Lectures on Aesthetics as well as Psychology and Logic. 6 P a g e

7 Considered the single most influential philosopher in Germany before the impact of high modernism, Lotze s continuing interest in both medicine and the mind-body problem also led to foundational works in the emerging discipline of psychology (Sullivan, 2010). During the mid- 1800s, such was Lotze s reputation that scholars from across Europe, Great Britain and America made sojourns to Germany to attend his lectures and study under his guidance. In a similar spirit to Sidgwick, Lotze attempted to mediate between opposing philosophical views to find an alternate to the extremes of idealism, on the one hand, and realism, on the other. To address this, Lotze approached this problem by postulating a union between the realms of thought and material. This union was conceived as arising from a process that Lotze termed teleomechanism or ideal-realism, whereby the natural material world was conceived as an essentially mechanical system, but it was via this mechanism that consciousness (or spirit) moved towards the realization of a set of idealities. Lotze had a pluralist conception of value which included: ethical values (Good); theoretical values (Truth); and aesthetic value (Beauty). 11 Ethical values were set as the prius of Lotze s system of philosophy as he proposed that is only via the conception of these values, as idealities, that human beings could comprehend and interpret the process towards which this unified system moved. 12 In recognising the constraints of human cognition, Lotze argued that the unity between the realms of thought and the natural material world transcended knowledge and rational demonstration. The concept of relations was internal to Lotze s system; to be was to be related. Because of this, Lotze advanced that axiology, in light of the limits of human cognitive capacities, should be an anthropological exercise. His system was not without issues of coherence or critique, but aspects of his work broadly appealed to scholars; their interest being characterised in the literature as having been shaped by partisan motivations and a reflection of personal values (Beiser 2013, p. 130; Mander 2011, p. 22; Passmore 1966, p 49-51). Lotze s system of thought was imported to Britain in two ways. First, several notable British intellects had studied under Lotze at Göttingen: James Ward, a contemporary of Marshall who held the Chair in Mental Philosophy and Logic at Cambridge from ; John Cook Wilson who became the Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford; Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison who later became Professor of Logic, Rhetoric and Metaphysics at St Andrews ( ); James Sully who became the Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College, London, from 1892 to 1903; Richard Burdon Haldane, the notable 11 Together with Wilhelm Windelband, Lotze has been described as a father of axiology or the philosophy of values (Skowronski, 2010, p. 4) 12 It is not unsurprising that Kuntz (1971, 68-87) traces Alfred North Whitehead s development of process philosophy back to Lotze s conception of relational movement towards idealities. 7 P a g e

8 British politician and Lord Chancellor from and 1924; and the poet, Robert Browning. Lotze s second path of influence in Britain was through the systematic translation of his metaphysical works commenced by Green in 1890, which continued after Green s death by Bernard Bosanquet, with F.H. Bradley, R.L. Nettleship and J. Cook Wilson all assisting with editing his works at various stages. Translations of Lotze s works were then published in the newly commenced journals Mind and The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society which published material relating to psychological and philosophical matters. Concurrently, Sidgwick facilitated the translation of Lotze s popular and influential work, Microcosm, the translation of which was completed by Elizabeth Hamilton and E.E. Constance Jones at Cambridge in T.M. Lindsay s (1876) article on Lotze, in the very first edition of Mind, underlines the importance of, and regard in which Lotze was generally held across several continents and, indeed, provides a counter to how mechanism was generally viewed in the newly emerging moral sciences; a view which counters the purely physicalist influences which historians have tended to highlight as having shaped, for example, economic method The Emergence of Personal Idealism at Cambridge Luigi Dappiano (1997, p. 111) contends that the idealism which emerged at Cambridge differed from that at Oxford 14 because of a [g]reater proximity to Lotze [and] a greater receptivity to his realist and pluralist theories. This contention, however, might best be considered alongside the strong tradition of utilitarianism in the moral sciences at Cambridge during this period, upheld by presence and influence of Sidgwick, and why contemplations of the importance of the individual remained an important metaphysical preoccupation in the moral sciences at Cambridge during the late 19 th Century. 13 Lotze s philosophical and scientific legacies largely fell into obscurity during the course of the 20 th century, though renewed interest in his work has coincided with increased interest in, and research being undertaken on, topics related to the history of analytic philosophy, the history of idealism, and the impact and migration of European thought during the 19 th century. Discussing the impact of Lotze s logic, Mathieu Marion (2009, p. 8) notes that the influence of Lotze is everywhere to be felt in the late 19 th Century but hardly ever studied. Lotze s body of work has been identified as having influenced the (i) neo-kantians (Milkov 2003); (ii) Franz Brentano and his school (Albertazzi, 2006); (iii) the British idealists (Dappiano, 1997; Mander, 2011; Milkov, 2000); (iv) American pragmatism (Hookway, 2009; Kraushaar, 1938); (v) Husserl s phenomenology (Hauser, 2003 as cited by Milkov 2008); (vi) Dilthey s philosophy of life (Orth, 1984 as cited by Milkov 2008); (vii) Frege s logic (Reck, 2002, 2013); and (viii) the early Cambridge analytical philosophy of Russell and Moore (Bell, 1999; Milkov, 2008, 2013). By the 1930s, however, Lotze s pluralist approach had given way to a wave of new philosophical concerns and the likes of Wittgenstein (as cited in Cahill, 2011, note 97) would comment that Lotze was probably a man who shouldn t have been allowed to write philosophy. 14 An important exception here is John Cook Wilson, the Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford, who had studied directly under Lotze at Gottingen. Cook Wilson has been referred to as the founder of Oxford Realism influencing the like of H. A. Prichard, Gilbert Ryle, and J. L. Austin. Cook Wilson was critical of both empiricism and idealism, and was instrumental in weakening the sway of idealism at Oxford (Mathieu, 2010). 8 P a g e

9 The importance of the individual became a distinguishing feature of the philosophical visions developed at Cambridge during the late British idealist period. Ward and McTaggart, particularly, developed idealist systems in which selves were fundamental, the parts being distinguished from the whole. Ward s 15 idealism had pluralistic features where interaction between a multiple cognitive agents was a source of both habit formation and spontaneity. Ward s and Stout s conception of the whole consisted of parts that were subject at times to transformation through relations forming new wholes, so over a continuum the emergence of a plurality of wholes was conceived. Thus for Ward: [a]t any given moment we have a certain whole of presentations, a field of consciousness psychologically one and continuous; at the next we have not an entirely new field but a partial change within this field (as cited in van der Schaar, 2013, p.52). McTaggart expounded a form of personal idealism where selves were distinguished from the absolute by their temporality and movement toward an ideal state conceived as love (Mander 2011, pp ; Passmore 1966). 16 Sorley s fellowship dissertation for election at Trinity was a study of ethics with particular consideration given to the theory of evolution. 17 Sorley followed Lotze s emphasis on value and the dictum that the true beginning of metaphysics lies in ethics ; for Sorley, freedom of the self as a centre of consciousness came to realise the nature of reality through moral experience and the process of valuation (Long, 1995, pp ). The focus upon personal idealism was not limited to Cambridge. Outside of Cambridge Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (1890) initiated a critique against absolute Hegelianism in his book, Scottish Philosophy: a Comparison of the Scottish and German answers to Hume based on absolute idealism s failure to deal with human individuality. 18 Hastings Rashdall, a Fellow of New College, Oxford, also adopted a type of personal idealism in his main work The Theory of Good and Evil (1907) 19 and expounded a non-hedonistic theory of utilitarianism he termed ideal utilitarianism. Rashdall (1907, Vol II p. 1) contended that acts are right or wrong according as they do or do not tend to promote the greatest quantity of [general] good. He developed a pluralist notion of the Good as 15 James Ward had acknowledged the resounding influence upon both Sidgwick and Lotze upon his views stating that two men have made me: Hermann Lotze and Henry Sidgwick (Ward as cited by Bartlett, 1925). 16 Dappiano (1997, p ) finds the features of common sense and critical realism in MacTaggart s personal idealism consistent with the early Hegelianism adopted by John Grote who had succeeded Whewell as Knightsbridge Professor of Moral philosophy at Cambridge University in Leaving Cambridge in 1888, Sorley held Chairs in Philosophy and Logic at Cardiff and later Saint Andrew s, returning to Cambridge in 1900 when he succeeded Sidgwick as Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy. 18 Although Dunham et al (2011) citing Cunningham (1933) notes that Pringle-Pattison distanced himself from personal idealists such as Ward and McTaggart and is better seen as a representing a middle point between absolute and personal idealism which Cunningham refers to as Personalistic Absolutism. 19 Rashdall had dedicated his work to Green and Sidgwick. 9 P a g e

10 had Lotze. In Rashdall s case, however, the Good consisted of virtue, intellectual activities, affection or social emotion, and pleasure. Given the established importance of Sidgwick s influence upon Marshall and Pigou, can we establish whether Sidgwick was influenced by Lotze s philosophy? The answer to this question can be illuminated somewhat by assessments made by Sidgwick s contemporaries. Two sources become relevant in this regard: Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison s (1908) review of Sidgwick s memoir in Mind and an assessment of Sidgwick and Lotze in comparative form by Merz (1903). Pringle-Pattinson (1908, p. 92) finds a spirit of commonality in both scholars To Sidgwick as to Lotze, with whom he had temperamentally a good deal in common, the problem of philosophy presented itself as the reconcilement of spiritual needs with intellectual principles. In recognising the weaknesses of idealism and utilitarianism, Sidgwick like Lotze sought reconciliation between the realms of thought and material. However, whilst Lotze s solution sought union by finding order in the cosmos, Sidgwick found chaos in attempts to find a unity and an inherent duality remained in his system ethics. Merz s (1903, pp ) assessment of Sidgwick s Methods of Ethics found that those [...] who know about Continental philosophy cannot help being [...] struck by the similarity of the position of Lotze s writings. Merz found that: (i) both scholars undertook a thorough investigation of existing and conflicting schools of thought by engaging common-sense; (ii) both were sceptical of the human cognitive capacities to solve philosophical problems and therefore opposed the extremes materialism and intuitionism leading them both to conclude that behind our ultimate intuitions there remained something which must be accepted but remained unproved; and (iii) both recognised the ultimate importance of the individual consciousness or Self in the contemplation of philosophical issues, but Sidgwick s universalistic hedonism led him to determine two lines of ethical thought the personal (intuitional) and the social (utilitarian). Merz also, perhaps revealing his own leanings, considered that neither Lotze nor Sidgwick had provided a full statement or adequate criticism of evolutionary ethics. However, both Lotze (Beiser 2014, p. 261 cites Lotze s 1884 Metaphysik, pp in this regard) and Sidgwick (1876) were sceptical of radical naturalism and its intrusion on metaphysical issues and had made provisional cases against it. The overarching similarity between Sidgwick and Lotze which we can derive from these assessments is their mediatory role in philosophy during a period of tumultuous transition in the sphere of knowledge. Can we determine how Sidgwick viewed Lotze s ideas? As there is scant references to Lotze in Sidgwick s writings and absence of reference to any associated influence of Lotze upon Sidgwick by biographers, the answer must be, no. We can only speculate on this from the surrounding context of influences extant in his time and place. Sidgwick s lack of referencing 10 P a g e

11 Lotze s works may, in part, be attributed to Lotze s incomplete statement of an ethical system. Sidgwick briefly refers to Lotze s contemplation of Helmholtz s Metageometry in an article in Mind appearing in 1900, the year in which Sidgwick died. Though we might speculate on Sidgwick s familiarity with Lotze s work, via his instrumentality in having Lotze s Microcosm published in English and his works recommended as required reading for moral sciences studies at Cambridge, we know with certainty that Sidgwick had developed his own metaphysical position on ethics by a balanced contemplation of competing schools of thought, and that his conclusions had led him to a dualist position which he continued to contemplate during his life. 20 It is against this broader contextual background that important critiques of the pervading intellectual status quo at Cambridge emerged from the moral sciences milieu at Cambridge during the closing decades of the 19 th century and early 20 th century. The general form of Ward s and Sorley s idealism has already been considered briefly above. Arising from his philosophical stance, Ward (1886) had mounted an influential critique of associationist psychology via his entry on psychology appearing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica which brought the associationist psychology of Mill and Bain into disrepute. Ward effectively shifted the focus of psychology studies at Cambridge, to not only include physicalist explanations, but also methods via which the nature and role of subjective consciousness was taken account. Following Sidgwick and Lotze, Ward (1899) also critiqued the advance of naturalism into philosophical domains on the grounds that mechanism only presented a partial view of reality. Ward addressed limits of naturalism more rigorously in his later philosophical works The Realm of Ends, or Pluralism and Theism published in 1911 and Essays in Philosophy published in Sorley (1885) critiqued Herbert Spencer s inspired idea of evolutionary theories of ethics particularly, describing them as unable either to set up a comprehensive ideal for life, or to yield any principle for distinguishing between good and evil in conduct (p. 309). The next generation of Cambridge philosophers extended these critiques further. Russell and G.E. Moore both rejected the neo-hegelianism propounded by their teachers Ward and Sorley 21 and developed philosophies along more radically realist lines. Russell outlined his atomistic stance in his Principles of Mathematics published in 1903 developing Logicism, defining mathematical entities like numbers, in pure logic, and deriving their fundamental properties. 20 Sidgwick had been one of the founding members of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882, and his interests in investigating the possibilities of life after death can be directly related to his ethical studies in which he had recognised a requirement of a future life to reconcile his dual conclusion. 21 Dappiano (1997, p. 116) suggests that Russell s and Moore s attacks on Hegelianism were more properly directed at the monism and absolute idealism expounded by Bradley at Oxford. Although Kuntz (1971, p. 57) notes that both G.E. Moore and Russell had found Lotze s thinking often very confused. 11 P a g e

12 Milkov (2008) argues that Russell s ontological position largely developed from his readings of Lotze during 1897, finding avenue to base his Logicism on a pluralist and relational conception of space and time. Milkov argues that Russell decided for the relational conception only after he attended lectures by McTaggart on Lotze [...] The lectures helped Russell to advance [...] to a new theory of judgment according to which judgments relate terms (individuals) which are distinct one from another. (p. 186) Russell later developed his principles more extensively with Alfred North Whitehead in Principia Mathematica which was published in three volumes between 1910 and G.E. Moore (1903), addressing Sidgwick s final pessimistic and dualist ethical stance and drawing on Lotze s realism, famously critiqued utilitarian ethics on the basis of the naturalistic fallacy, developing of his own intuitionist system of ethics. 22 Moore asserted that ethical theorists before him had made the mistake of determining the qualities that make things good inevitably provide a false analysis of the term Good and the properties of goodness (the naturalistic fallacy ). Moore s argument formed a basis for the rejection of hedonism. Good to Moore was indefinable and unanalysable in terms of any other property. Whatever their particular readings of Lotze, both Russell and Moore are considered as contributing to the eventual weakening of the idealist movement in Great Britain and founders of analytic philosophy. 23 These three critiques at Cambridge represent significant intellectual shifts and effectively separate the times when Marshall s and Pigou s foundational intellectual development took place. Marshall s early philosophical interests, including his sojourns to Germany to study Kant and Hegel, his interests in psychology, in Babbage and Bain, his interests in the physicalist studies of the human mind by the likes of Helmholtz informed by the profound impacts of discoveries in human physiology, and in Darwin s and Spencer s theories of evolution, have been studied in some depth (Simon Cook, 2009; Groenewegen, 1995; Raffaelli, 1994; Raffaelli et al., 2006). This is not to say that the later developments outlined above did not impact Marshall s thinking. Indeed, the above context, examining differences in the types of idealism which had developed in Britain heterogeneously over time, could be of some value to interpretative perspectives of Marshall s 22 The influence of Lotze upon Russell and Moore s early thought and the birth of analytic philosophy has been traced by several scholars (Bell, 1999; Milkov, 2000, 2008; Passmore, 1966). Bell (1999) traces both as having been influenced by continental scholars of which Lotze was one. Milkov (2000, 2008) discusses Russell s intellectual debt to Lotze directly. Passmore (1966) refers to Moore s rejection of the Hegelian view and attributes this to his exposure to Lotze s philosophy. 23 Additionally, it has been argued that demarcation disputes between idealists on the nature of absolute and personal idealism also contributed to the movement s internal collapse (see, Passmore, 1976). 12 P a g e

13 philosophical development and provide for a broader understanding of the term neo-hegelian (Simon Cook, 2012; Raffaelli, 2012). The point is that Pigou s foundational thought was forged during a time when significant key intellectual influences noted to have shaped Marshall s earlier foundational thought physicalist approaches to psychology, naturalism and evolutionary theories of ethics, and metaphysical positions were being severely critiqued. 4. The Indirect Influence of Lotze on Pigou via the Cambridge Philosophers The broader context outlined above of the changes in the intellectual milieu at Cambridge during the late 19 th Century is reflected in the requirements outlined for the Moral Sciences Tripos during 1899, the year in which Pigou commenced his study. Completing Part II of the Moral Sciences Tripos in 1900 after completing the undivided History Tripos, Pigou achieved a first with special distinction for his studies in Ethics, Political Philosophy and Advanced Political Economy (The University of Cambridge, 1900, p. 374). The moral sciences syllabus (The University of Cambridge, 1899, pp. xxxix-xli) during the year Pigou conducted his studies required students to complete an essay paper containing questions on all subjects covered in the moral sciences. So though Pigou specialised in Ethics, Politics and Advanced Political Economy, the broader requirements of the Tripos meant that he was required to study certain aspects falling under Metaphysics, the History of Philosophy, Advanced Psychology and Psychophysics and Advanced Logic and Methodology. 24 The required reading as outlined in the Student Guide for the Tripos edited by Ward (1893) in its amended form in indicate three significant differences in the intellectual influences between Marshall s foundational studies and Pigou s. First, the presence of Herman Lotze and Neo- Kantians is evident in the prescribed reading across the Tripos in metaphysics, logic and psychology, including Lotze s Metaphysik, Medicinische Psychologie, his works on Logic, and Microcosmus, and the prescribed reading of the works of Alois Riehl, Friedrich Paulsen and Johann Herbart. Second, Ward notes broad changes in psychology which had made considerable advances in recent times, generally reflecting the change in focus in psychology as outlined above. The recommended readings not only included the physicalist works of Sully and Bain, and the works of Ward, but also of Herbart, Lotze, Fechner, Drobisch, Wundt, Morell and William James. Third, there is a clear emphasis upon the student s critical evaluation of types of ethical theory, between intuitional, utilitarian, evolutionist and idealistic schools, students being advised to study the major critiques of each approach. It is also significant that in the year of Pigou s study for the Tripos the special subject in the History of Philosophy centred on Leibnitz s philosophy, together 24 Requirements for the new regulations for the Moral Sciences Tripos came into effect for examinations held in 1901 (The University of Cambridge, 1900). 25 It was in its 5 th amended edition by P a g e

14 with a study of Lotze s Metaphysik and Microcosmus; Liebnitz and Lotze both being scholars whose metaphysics centred on the conception of individuals/entities as separate centres of consciousness and their interaction/relations with each other. Pigou kept a personal copy of Microcosmus (as well as a range of philosophical works) in his personal library (Kings College Archives, KCAC ). In view of this, and the syllabus of the Moral Sciences Tripos, it is highly likely that he read the work of Lotze and the Neo-Kantians. And it is certain that he had developed a well-considered metaphysical vision and ethical stance, as evident in his philosophical essays published collectively 1908 as The Trouble with Theism and Other Essays. 26 It is within these essays that the influences described above become evident in the philosophical stance Pigou advances. The impact of Sidgwick upon Pigou s philosophical thought is well known. That influence is clearly articulated by Pigou in the Preface to The Trouble with Theism and Other Essays where he states that [f]or the general philosophical standpoint that I have adopted I am chiefly indebted to the writings of the late Professor Sidgwick (1908, p. viii). Pigou, however, also acknowledges Bertrand Russell for reading through and offering valuable criticisms for the whole manuscript. A.H. Moberly 27, John Maynard Keynes, and the Rev. John R.P. Sclater 28 also provided useful suggestions upon special points. Pigou also makes the point that these essays were not the result of his main work, by then firmly established in economics, but as a bye-occupation. However, the essays contained in this book may be viewed as a statement of Pigou s philosophical position on key aspects which related to his economic thought: the nature of reality of which economic phenomenon is but part; and ethics, which is informed by economic study. The book is structure in a particular way and addresses, in a series of essays, first, ontological matters, and, second, ethics and addresses key controversies surrounding the study of ethics which Sidgwick (1886) identified in his Outlines of the History of Ethics. This structure of the book is illustrated below. Chapter Title Broad Topic Summary 1. The General Nature of Reality - pluralism v. monism 2. The Problem of Theism - spiritism v. materialism Ontological Stance 26 Although published in 1908, several of Pigou s essays had appeared earlier in the International Journal of Ethics and one in the Independent Review. 27 Arthur Hamilton Moberly was a friend of Pigou s from King s. He was 10 years his junior and is listed as graduating with a B.A. from Cambridge in Born into a prominent ecclesiastical family, Moberly s grandfather was George Moberly, Bishop of Salisbury; his father, Robert Campbell Moberly, Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral; and his brothers were, Sir Walter Hamilton Moberly, a notable intellect in philosophy and political science, and Robert Hamilton Moberly, later the Dean of Salisbury. Moberly later pursued a career in architecture and is probably the young friend who is referred to as having designed Pigou s house at Buttermere. 28 Sclater had attended Emmanuel College and, like Pigou, was a past president of the Students Union. He had graduated from Moral Sciences Tripos in P a g e

15 3. Free Will - determinism v. non-determinism 4. The Problem of Good - axiology 5. The Ethics of the Gospels - Love and character in Jesus s ethics 6. The Ethics of Nietzsche - ethical ideals - pessimism 7. The Optimism of Browning and Meredith - ethical ideals - optimism Ethical Stance Pigou commences his first essay The General Nature of Reality citing Lotze from Microcosm to examine the assertion that an independent reality exists, and the question In what does that reality consist? Pigou (1908, p. 17) critically evaluates various forms of monism (physicalist materialism, emergentist materialism, absolute idealism, and neo-kantian idealism) which he rejects and asserts a pluralist stance similar to Lotze, accepting Lotze s assertion that there is an independent reality. In this first essay Pigou is not reduced to complete scepticism about what an independent reality may consist of. He states an agnostic view in considering the possible relation between percipients and the independent reality coming to the conclusion that ordinary experience indicates that part of the independent reality consists of the spirits of living men and perhaps of animals. Drawing on Russell (1903), Pigou dismisses forms of idealism 29 and materialism and employs critical realism 30 to conclude that the independent reality is constituted in part by entities consisting respectively of infinite collections of points and instants. 31 Taken together, Pigou asserts a form of psychophysical dualism as had Lotze, though for methodological purposes. 32 Pigou s continuing interest in the nature of how these two spheres interacted is evident in his long membership with the Psychical Research Society and his contributions to the Society of Psychical Research Proceedings which indicate his interests in scientifically studying such phenomenon which could shed light on these matters (Pigou 1909, 1911; Balfour 1911). Pigou s second essay deals with the existence of God and is couched in terms of the enduring debate of creationism (spiritism) versus evolution (materialism). It is in this essay that we can clearly observe the influence of not only Sidgwick, but Lotze, Ward, Sorley and Stout concerning the limits of naturalism. Pigou (1908, p. 27) finds on two grounds that the argument 29 In effect, by following Russell, Pigou rejects the antimonies of Kant. 30 Pigou here distinguishes between "Kantian view" (we can't perceive things as they are in themselves), "naïve realism" (the world is what we see) and "critical realism" which he differentiates from naïve realism by drawing on Kulpe (philosopher), Whetham (Physical sciences) and Stout (psychologist). Pigou concludes that the world of appearance is not identical with the independent reality; therefore, he says "critical realism is master of the field" (1908 p. 15). Tony Lawson (2003) has in more recent times brought critical realism to the fore in economics in his work Reorienting Economics. 31 Russell (1921, p. 11) would later abandon this position and adopt a position of neutral monism [...] for which the reasons will appear in subsequent lectures is that James is right in rejecting consciousness as an entity, and that the American realists are partly right, though not wholly, in considering that both mind and matter are composed of a neutral-stuff which, in isolation is neither mental nor material. 32 Lotze too, adopted psychophysical dualism, but for methodological purposes, his fully matured position being describes as spiritism. 15 P a g e

16 for Design, however false it may be, cannot be disproved by science: first, by drawing upon Hugo De Vries s (1904) observation that Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest ; and second, that in acceding that Science may one day be able to explain laws of mutation, the argument remains that such laws remain only a description of a process and not an explanation of it. Pigou provides an example from economic method to underline what he means I do not explain the industrial life of a people when I state its process in terms of the differential calculus (1908, p. 26, my italics). Pigou concludes, however, that the evidence that Nature works to plan is lacking, and that Mill s (1874) design argument in his Essays on Religion cannot be sustained, nor can the finality of nature or design be sustained by appealing to probability. Pigou then considers emergent systems where broad underlying order appears from complex conflicting forces such as in the economic world where the multiple activities of business and industry lead to regularities which appear to be an act of a single hand. These tendencies, Pigou thinks, might point to finality in nature, yet need not be attributable to Christian Theism. Christian Theism remains, for Pigou, unproven and barely probable. Yet he considers that the many and varied accounts of religious experience over the course of human history is suggestive of a reality more deep than the cool transparencies of thought and explores various avenues for understanding this phenomenon scientifically. Pigou concludes in concert with Sidgwick that [h]umanity will not and cannot acquiesce in a godless world (Sidgwick from Tennyson, a Memoir, i. p, 302 cited by Pigou 1908, p. 63). It must be recalled, however, that Pigou (1907, p. 369) was prepared to consider eugenics as a means of social improvement, though underlining that such considerations needed to be considered as data and not precepts, and comment indicative of Pigou s dual perspective. Pigou sets out his position on the problem of free will in his third essay; a problem intimately connected with the question of moral responsibility and hinging on the nature of determinism. Pigou points out that many philosophers consider that moral duty requires determinism, as individuals can only be responsible for actions if they follow causally from their character. Pigou, however, intuitively considered himself a centre of conflicting desires, with any one of which [he was] free within limits to identify [him] self in will. The nature of volition is, therefore, important in the formation of Pigou s stance. Pigou (1908, p. 79, especially fn.1) supposes that Mill failed to distinguish properly between desires and volition and rejects both Mill s and McTaggart s psychological analysis for determinism. Pigou supposes, as Sidgwick, that free-will may be illusionary, but on the basis of weak evidence for determinism rejects this and makes the workaday conclusion of uninstructed common sense that the will is endowed with limited freedom. Pigou s awareness of the fine nuances in the analysis of individuals choices as it 16 P a g e